What will John McCain do without the Bush administration? After all, to any question on current events, McCain casts his gaze in the direction of Bush and answers, “Whatever he said.”

The AIG bail-out is a perfect example. McCain, on the Today Show Monday:

McCain: “…No, I do not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook for AIG and I’m glad that the Secretary Paulson has apparently taken the same line.”

Q: “So, if we get to the point, in the middle of the week when AIG might have to file for bankruptcy, they’re on their own.”

McCain: “Well, they’re on their own. We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else, this is something that we’re going to have to work through.”

But then the Bush administration acted, which meant McCain flip-flopped, uh, changed his mind, or um, rather, clarified his position. McCain, on Good Morning America today:

“Now on the bailout itself, I didn’t want to do that. And I don’t think anybody I know wanted to do that. But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here. They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption.”

Somewhere between “They’re on their own” and, “My God, we’ve got to do something!” McCain might have an actual opinion. And just as soon as Bush tells him what it is, we’ll let you know.